Once in a while something crops up in the world of
classical music radio broadcasting that is so significant and unusual
that we spend days eagerly anticipating it, clearing our schedule so
as not to miss a note, tape recorder at the ready, and it is remembered
for long after as a milestone.

This broadcast, almost certainly the first, on 25 April
2002 at 8.50 in the evening, of this major British orchestral masterpiece,
was such an event. One is reminded of Chabrier bursting into tears on
hearing "Tristan" at Bayreuth – "I’ve been waiting twenty
years to hear that open A on the cello." Whilst we may not have
quite broken into convulsive sobs, in a way this was even more of an
adventure into the great unknown. Chabrier had studied the score of
"Tristan", whereas photo-facsimile copies of "The Flowing
Tide" are so rare, to lay hands on one must be like finding the
Holy Grail. Moreover, not only have I waited for twenty years to hear
it, but the musical world has had to wait for nearly sixty years since
what was probably the only performance, until now, in 1943.

It was in a pencilled sketchbook, now in the RAM, that
the first three bars of "The Flowing Tide" were noted down
on 8 January 1924, in Brussels, at the Café des Trois Suisses.
This notebook has a number of miscellaneous sketches, some of which,
only a few bars long, some for string quintet, may relate to "The
Flowing Tide" – "finale in C", 12 January, "development
of 1st movement", 12 January, and other passages with
the place where conceived, e.g. Baltic 2 January 1924, Tivoli, Copenhagen,
North Sea. It is clear a major symphonic work was forming in his mind.
They seem to have been conceived alongside the sight-reading pieces
he was writing for the Associated Board! This recalls Franck writing
his great organ Chorals in tandem with the sixty-three pieces for harmonium!
How the inspirational and the everyday go hand in hand. This would have
been the third major work, in a period of renewed compositional activity
after Dale had recovered from his experience at Ruhleben camp in World
War I. He was in his late 30s, in his vigorous prime, and things seemed
bright. It was entirely fitting that he should have wanted to write
a work expressing his life-long love of the sea. He often used to go
down to Exmouth to go sailing with York Bowen, and the viola Romance
was written there. He had in 1919 and 1920 gone on an examining
tour to Australia and New Zealand, which involved a sea voyage around
the world.

However, he failed to make progress with this piece,
and after two carols for chorus and the 1926 violin Ballade nothing
was written for over ten years until 1938. The reasons for this creative
silence are no doubt many, deep and complex like the man himself, and
I will enlarge on them in a later article. It was in 1938 that Henry
Wood, a close friend and at one time a near neighbour, on going through
Dale’s MSS found the sketches, took to them and requested that the work
was to be completed for his 50th anniversary as a conductor
that coming season. Had it been completed in time, it would have been
performed at the famous concert where Vaughan Williams’ "Serenade
to Music" first saw the light of day, with Rachmaninov playing
his 2nd Concerto, and would surely have became better known.
But, though this request, as well as his happy second marriage to Margit
Kaspar, gave Dale the urge of spirit he needed to compose, his administrative
responsibilities as Warden of the RAM and then the upheaval of the war
delayed the process. The BBC asked him to finish the work for the 1943
season. According to Harry Farjeon and Norman Demuth, two colleagues
at the RAM, it was written with all the old youthful enthusiasm, and
week by week he informed Farjeon of the diminishing tally of pages still
to be scored. Mrs Dale told me in 1986 that the piece would have been
longer had he not been pressurised to complete it. Much work went into
checking the MS set of parts, often at night. The first rehearsal, conducted
by Dale himself, as Sir Henry Wood was ill, took place on 30 July 1943.
It was after this 2-hour rehearsal that Dale complained of tiredness
in the artist’s room at the Royal Albert Hall and collapsed, dying before
reaching hospital. One pupil told me that it was possible that, perfectionist
as he was, his knowledge that there were errors in the score and still
amendments to be made after all the effort, increased the strain on
him and helped precipitate that fatal heart attack. We must remember
that this work was never intended to be his swan song. Not only would
it have been revised had he lived, but it may have been the prelude
to a new creative surge which, I like to think, might have included
a fully fledged symphony, or some autobiographical tone poems in the
manner of Josef Suk.

The first and only performance took place on 6 August
1943 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult. Feruccio
Bonavia in the Musical Times referred to the thoughtfulness, modesty
and good sense of the older generation of British composers, and said
that it suggested a delicate composition for the solo instruments, as
if a Chopin prelude had suddenly found its way into the orchestra -
an antidote to the noisy brass band effects of Chavez’s "Sinfonia
India". Farjeon expressed the hope that it would be heard again
soon. However deeply unfashionable as his style was in the early 1940s,
the score was allowed to gather dust on library shelves. It does the
RAM no credit that they did nothing to arrange another performance,
and made access to the score deliberately difficult, although in 1986
they had eight copies of the score, mostly locked away in an MS room
where it could not be borrowed or copied.

There are also 79 pages of short score in pencil, though
how this relates to the finished product it is not yet possible to state,
and some pages were probably lost in a burglary at Mrs Dale’s flat in
1984. The score is headed by a quote from Act 4 Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s
"Julius Caesar".

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

William McNaught, in his programme note of 1943, describes
it as being 28 minutes in length (in our 2002 performance, recorded
in 1998, it is 31 minutes long), and divided into five episodes, though
continuous, often without definition of the moment of change. The scoring
is for triple woodwind, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 3 timpani,
side drum, glockenspiel, bass drum, cymbals, celesta, 2 harps and strings.

Such is a concise résumé of the facts
about this "symphonic piece", as it was originally titled
in the short score. Now I can only give subjective impressions about
the score at this early stage of acquaintance, after having heard the
tape only a handful of times. I only glanced at the score in the RAM
library in the 1980s, enough to recognise that undulating figure in
the strings in compound time at the start, and to note that it ends
in glorious C major fortissimo.

So what direction was Dale moving in during 1924, only
to be thwarted for over fourteen years? Is it indeed a chamber composition
for solo instruments, or is it the large design in orchestral expression
with increased range of dynamic colour and intensity of feeling that
the programme note leads one to expect? What expectation that description
arouses. It is as if his contemporaries sensed something big and special
was being created around them.

There are two outstanding qualities in the score that
strike one at once, the first being the grasp of large-scale form. I
have said before that Dale is principally a large-scale composer, needing
a spacious canvas to express his deepest thoughts. Although three works
(the two sonatas and the viola suite) are longer than "The Flowing
Tide", these are multi-movement works with sonata form and variation
form, however free, to hold them together. "The Flowing Tide"
is his longest continuous movement, and is a gigantic symphonic fantasy
(that word is so important in Dale), though it is possible to hear the
first 5 minutes or so as a 1st subject area, followed by
a quite audible bridge passage to a 2nd lyrical group which
lasts approximately 7 minutes. Both sections end with a descent to a
growling contra-bassoon. It is easy to mark the start of the 5th
and final section too, with a sudden characteristic snap into a decisive
tempo mirroring the manner of the 3rd, scherzando section,
7˝ minutes from the end. What is less easy to hear at first is the move
from the 3rd to the 4th section.

It appears at first that there is much thematic material,
but on listening more closely we discover that much is derived from
four or five themes. Though there is recap of material, Dale never repeats
himself literally. There is constant development of themes and variations
either melodically or in the orchestra. This is a densely argued and
truly symphonic score, and Dale achieves wonderful continuity, and seamless
flow, living up to the work’s perfectly apt title. The first section
impresses at once with its nobility and breadth, with long paragraphs
effortlessly spun out, the material superficially carefree, approachable,
benign in mood, but with so many subtle hints in orchestration and harmony
that this is a large-scale piece with much more to come. Phrases overlap,
with interspersions, extensions and modulations, unfolding in a complex
sophisticated way, but always logically. Melodically it holds the attention
throughout, and it is in the broader still and slower 2nd
section that we have our most memorable haunting theme, first heard
on the oboe, starting with a descending 5th. All this is
developed at length. The scherzando section continues to develop material
from the 1st two sections, alongside new elements – a jaunty
dance with mischievous syncopations, and touches of darkness, mystery
and suspense. What becomes more striking as the piece progresses is
the amount of counterpoint used, most noticeably in the final section.
This was foreshadowed in the last moment of the violin sonata but taken
further here. We get a sense of arrival less than two minutes before
the end as the tempo races on, culminating in an amazing orgiastic ending,
with three sharp chords before the crescendo to a rousing fortissimo
end.

The second outstanding quality is the colourful handling
of the orchestra. This is more of a joyful discovery, as I have only
heard Dale’s orchestration once before, in that fine performance under
Ronald Corp of "Before the Paling of the Stars" at Highgate
in November 2000. In fact the two choral works and the orchestral version
of the viola Romance and Finale, are the only large-scale examples of
Dale’s orchestral writing since his student days, though he had been
orchestrating two Wolf songs and three Debussy Preludes between 1938
and 1940, possibly as warming up exercises. The feeling for colour is
evident in the larger combinations as well as the solo instrumental
passages. We experience rippling mellow clarinet flourishes, a melancholy
bass clarinet solo, flutes capering over side-drum, bassoon and flutes
over a string pedal, various pairs of woodwind, cello solo, and tremolo
strings both agitated and hushed. But there is growing strength in the
1st section, to a virile tutti with vigorous horn calls on
the way, majestic passages for brass choir, muted trumpets, the bullish
swagger of the trombones near the end, dissonant chords for massed strings
and spiky woodwind effects. One unforgettable passage is in the 2nd
section where the unison violins take up that warm melody over a gently
throbbing woodwind accompaniment in cross-rhythm, with a perfectly placed
cymbal crash. One can feel the breeze gathering, the swell of the waves
lapping the boat and almost hear the seagulls overhead in this evocative
music. Dale creates mystical fantastic effects in the scherzando sections
using his generous percussion section, so we get trills on high violins
over a side-drum roll, giving a sense of whirling into infinity, as
well as passages using the other-worldly celesta, amongst many other
incidental details, and we will all no doubt find our own favourite
corners to savour.

The one major influence felt is that of Elgar, especially
in the opening section in its assumed 9/8 time forward sweep. The swooping
tremolos at one stage recall a passage in Ravel’s Quartet, and there
is a memorable passage in the 2nd section where the orchestra
rises in a crescendo to a sudden pause followed by an explosion that
is almost Mahlerian.

So, how does "The Flowing Tide" relate in
terms of quality to the rest of the Dale canon? At this early stage,
I can state with confidence that it is at the very least of the calibre
of the three viola works and "Before the Paling of the Stars".
As I write, the conviction grows that this work is indeed the equal
of the twin peaks of Dale’s output, the two mature sonatas. Its broadcast
is an event of major importance in British music. This is Dale in the
high summer of his creative life, with a new maturity and breadth; Dale
the master magician who entertains, intrigues, inspires and charms us
by turn, with his rich palette of colour and harmony, and all the fantasy
of old. This, with the viola suite, is Dale at his most outgoing and
confident (these are the only two works in the mature canon that end
loudly). It is true C major music at the start and finish, with a whole
universe in between. It is indeed the tide taken at the flood, supremely
exhilarating affirmative music, a celebratory paean to nature at her
most expansive.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra seemed to relish the experience
and one could not wish for a more experienced and sympathetic conductor
than Vernon Handley. Now we hope that other orchestras and conductors
may take it up, and in time it should become as well known as the major
orchestral works of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Delius. A recording
is urgently needed, and it would be good to have a published score available.
Now how about tackling the three early overtures and the Fantasia for
organ and orchestra?

Let Harry Farjeon, in his obituary of Dale in the RAM
magazine, have the last word "Music is Life. And so he felt it
to be. The flowing tide of beauty inevitably rising to some inexpressible
attainment of spiritual feeling – that was the current of his life and
we could offer our friend no better tribute than the promise that it
shall also be ours."

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